Facebook and Instagram Get Tools to Limit Your Time on the Apps

Now even Facebook wants you to spend less time scrolling through your feed.

After years of tinkering to make people use the apps more, Facebook and Instagram are finally bringing new tools to allow you to make more productive use of your time.

The dashboard in the new apps comes with a variety of options to help you keep track of your time, telling you how much time you have spent scrolling through your feed. It will launch as “Your time on Facebook”, on the Facebook app, and “Your activity” on Instagram.

Further, you can also put a timer to alert you once you’ve spent more time on the app than you ideally want to. You can mute notifications from the app for up to eight hours at a time as well.

The features will be rolled out to users worldwide in the coming weeks, except for a select group of users who have them right now, testing the new features. It’ll be accessible through the hamburger menu, or three vertical lines. It’ll show the amount of time you’ve spent on the app in the past seven days, alongside additional options.

Avoiding Negative Press

Facebook claims that the new tools were developed in co-operation with institutes specializing in mental health. While the features are at odds with Facebook’s own objectives, the social media giant probably realizes that it could do without more negative press, hence the arrival of new features.

Facebook usage has repeatedly been linked with adverse mood, and it is high time that the changes are finally implemented. It is ultimately up to the users to ignore the changes or make full use of them.